Kennedy and the Promise of the Sixties

by William J. Rorabaugh

This book explores life in America during that brief promising period in the early sixties when John F. Kennedy was the U.S. president. Kennedy's optimism and charm helped to give promise to the times. At the same time, Cold War frustrations in Cuba and Vietnam worried Americans, while the 1962 Missile Crisis narrowly avoided a nuclear disaster. Early in the decade, the Civil Rights movement gained momentum through student sit-ins and Freedom Rides. Martin Luther King, Jr. emerged as a powerful spokesman for non-violent social change and gave his powerful "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington in 1963. The Civil Rights movement proved to be the seedbed for many other movements in the decade. The American family was also undergoing rapid change and Betty Friedan launched what became the Women's Movement in 1963. Culture, too, underwent transformation. The Beat authors Jack Kerouac and Alan Ginsburg gained respectability, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan revived folk music, and Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol produced Pop Art. Ginsberg, Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary and Ken Kesey began to promote psychedelic drugs. The Sixties was a decade of marked political, social, and cultural change. Since 1976 W.J. Rorabaugh has taught at the University of Washington in Seattle. He is the author of The Alcoholic republic (Oxford, 1979), The Craft Apprentice (Oxford, 1986), and Berkeley at War: The 1960s (Oxford, 1989). Professor Rorabaugh has held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Humanities Center, the Newberry Library, the Huntington Library, and the John F. Kennedy Library. He has served on editorial boards for the Journal of Early Republic and the History of Education Quarterly.

342 pages, Hardcover

First published September 16, 2002

About the author

Professor at the University of Washington.

Reviews

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and informative study of America in the Sixties and the influence of Kennedy as President and after his assassination - 7/10.

[Erica · Rating 2 out of 5]

While written smartly enough, and offering a tolerable introduction to the major issues, themes, and events of the early 1960s, this book doesn't carry much weight for anyone with even moderate knowledge of the period. It comes across with a degree of self-importance which, I suppose, is fine if you're reading it as a cursory overview as to the feel of the early sixties. Though it's good to be critical of even the most revered politicians from time to time, I found myself wanting to know more, to have more supporting evidence, to see a more detailed explanation and analysis behind the criticism. Maybe it's the history buff in me, but, on the whole, I was expecting a lot more.

[Don Incognito · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an assigned text in my fall 2005 Post-WWII America course. It was somewhat useful, but felt like a pop history. Not particularly academic.